date

10 Decr 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity
10 Decr 1801

Maximum

6. Scarcity Crops

2

Here as before, the Hon: Gentleman having wrapped up his argument in an interrogation, at the peril of the charge of misconception and misrepresentation, I find myself obliged to make a proposition for the Hon Gentleman which I do with all imaginable diffidence and reluctance, prepared and resolved to discard it /turn it out of doors/ the very instant he disowns it: protesting most sincerely that if this be not what he means I am altogether unable to conjecture what else it can be

{ In this paragraph a proposition will I think be found eventually included /assumed/ a proposition, which the Hon:ble Gentleman upon further /maturer/ reflection, to the Hon: Gentleman himself will, I am inclined to think appear untenable:} This is – that the price of corn ought at all times to be of such a height, as to afford something not much less than living profit to a farmer whose crop has “almost totally failed”. I could wish the proposition were /had been/more determinate: but had I made it so, I might have been accused /taxed/ not without ground, of misrepresenting it. This, if the Hon.ble Gentleman will take the trouble /have the goodness/ to take pen and ink to it, or even without pen and ink bestow a little thought upon it in the line of calculation is what he will find rather an expensive mode of insurance.
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  • Title: [10 Decr 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity]
    Description: 10 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    6. Scarcity Crops

    1

    6. “It is not enough to say, that the maximum shall be set so high, that

    generally speaking, the farmer shall be a gainer” – (Certainly – but quere was

    this ever said by any body?) What (continues the Hon. Gentleman) will that man

    say to your average[?] whose crop has almost totally failed, and who even at the

    very high price of the market may possibly be a loser? Will you make him a

    greater loser by arbitrarily reducing the price of his corn?”

    Thus far the Hon: Gentleman: for my own part I must confess I see not what true

    light can /will/ be thrown on the subject by a dialogue /conversation/ between a

    man {placed} /put into/ a case from which nothing can be concluded, and a

    supposed simpleton of a legislator – such an one as the man would never meet

    with.
  • Title: [10 Decr 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity]
    Description: 10 Decr 1801

    Maximum

    6. Scarcity Crops

    3

    It may be rejected /set down/ /noted down/ as no better than an argument ad

    hominem, if I were to call to mind upon this occasion as upon a former, that the

    case of the scarcity-crop farmers which is here regarded as the prevailing one

    which is here assumed /taken up/ as having a claim to be the measure and

    standard of the desirable rate in regard of price is thrown out of the question,

    that the cause of this unfortunate class so decidedly taken up and patronized,

    is in less than six pages after given up and deserted. Of two inconsistent

    propositions the Hon: Gentleman will at all times /any time/ be at liberty to

    adhere to which he pleases, though he can not well adhere to both at the same

    time, he may at any time, on condition of giving up the other /one/ adhere to

    either. On the terms of acknowledging that the measure we have seen him

    announcing with complacency and which on that ground I will venture till

    corrected to call his measure – the measure of encouraging importation for the

    express purpose of keeping down the price – upon the terms I say of giving up

    this /his/ measure of his, he may at any time abide by /adhere to/ this argument

    which is more particularly and exclusively /decidedly/ his own /he may at any

    time make his election/. He may say happen what will to the consumers – I will

    take care of the unfortunate part of the farmers I will bring them whole at any

    rate. The
  • Title: [10 Dec r 1801 Maximum 6. Scarcity]
    Description: 10 Dec r 1801

    Maximum

    6. Scarcity Crops

    4

    The decision would be a human one: but as partial humanity must have its limits, let us in this instance, catch some sort of glance at the effect of it upon the whole.

    Precision does not appear upon this /the/ occasion to have been /of this pamphlet to have been in any considerable degree/ the hon. Gentleman’s aim, at least as far as the aim may be judged of by the effect. If it had been, a few figures I mean of arithmetic not of speech, would /might/ have been in that point of view more satisfactory more eligible than the interrogations – and the almost total failure of crops – and the possibility, and nothing more than possibility of a loss, which under the supposed excess of price is supposed to be result of the almost total failure. Had it not been for the context if I had been called upon to give a picture of the Hon. Gentlemans almost total failure, I should /might/ have represented by some such deficiency as that of nine tenths: but as the loss supposed is such an one as /degree of deficiency understood, must be no /not be any/ greater than/ the Hon. Gentleman would wish to see made up, possibities apart by the price, I will, in the midst of my perplexity – protesting it to be merely for illustration, pitch upon a failure of considerably less magnitude – a failure corresponding for example to a deficiency of three fourths. Rejecting the value of /quantity representative of the value of/ the Hon. Gentleman’s possibility, as a quantity too troublesome to deal with, the price to be allowed of and wished for for the purpose

    of